The natural environment of the Tatras is one of the most diverse in Europe in terms of species richness and ecological value. This mountain range is well preserved and constitutes an important part of Europe’s nature resources. Dwarf pine (Pinus mugo Turra) is the main component of the Tatras subalpine belt covering altitude between 1550 and 1800 m a.s.l. It is a very dynamic species, which exp...

The Mediterranean climate prevailing on the coastal belt of the Mediterranean Sea undergoes to change toward the inner part of the Anatolia in accordance with the increase of altitude, mountain range barriers, the tectonic structure of the region, and tectonic-karstic depressions. Continentality also plays a critical role in the micro-climates that prevail across the various eco-regions. This s...

Water relations of Engelmann spruce (Picea engelmannii Parry) and subalpine fir (Abies lasiocarpa (Hook.) Nutt.) trees growing at an elevation of 3230 m on Mt. Evans, Colorado, USA, were studied during the winters of 1995-1996 and 1996-1997. During both winters, current-year and 1-year-old shoots were collected weekly and their relative water contents (RWC) determined. Measured meteorological p...

Dead wood biomass can be a substantial fraction of stored carbon in forest ecosystems, and coarse woody debris (CWD) decay rates may be sensitive to climate warming. We used an elevation gradient in Colorado Rocky Mountain subalpine forest to examine climate and species effects on dead wood biomass, and on CWD decay rate. Using a new radiocarbon approach, we determined that the turnover time of...

Evidence is accumulating that the continued provision of essential ecosystem services is vulnerable to land-use change. Yet, we lack a strong scientific basis for this vulnerability as the processes that drive ecosystem-service delivery often remain unclear. In this paper, we use plant traits to assess ecosystem-service sensitivity to land-use change in subalpine grasslands. We use a trait-base...

Site classification in the biogeoclimatic ecosystem classification system is based on three differentiating properties: climatic regimes (expressed by biogeoclimatic subzones or variants), soil moisture regimes (SMRs), and soil nutrient regimes (SNRs). A SNR represents a segment of a regional soil nutrient gradient, i.e., soils which provide similar levels of plant-available nutrients over a lo...

Introduction: Climate change is expected to impose significant tension on the geographic distribution of tree species. Yet, tree species range shifts may be delayed by their long life spans, capacity to withstand long periods of physiological stress, and dispersal limitations. Wildfire could theoretically break this biological inertia by killing forest canopies and facilitating species redistri...

Climate change is altering plant species distributions globally, and warming is expected to promote uphill shifts in mountain trees. However, at many cold-edge range limits, such as alpine treelines in the western United States, tree establishment may be colimited by low temperature and low moisture, making recruitment patterns with warming difficult to predict. We measured response functions l...

This study is part of ongoing research efforts aimed to developing Earth Observation (EO) strategies towards the implementation of the Water Framework Directive (WFD), ensuring systematic monitoring of water quality in the largest lakes of the Subalpine ecoregion (northern Italy). To the aim the Medium Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MERIS) Full resolution (FR) data offer an excellent choice. ...

Determination of water sources of plant species in a community is critical for understanding the hydrological processes and their importance in ecosystem functions. Such partitioning of plant xylem water into specific sources (i.e. precipitation, groundwater) can be achieved by analysing deuterium isotopic composition (υD) values for source waters. A subalpine dark coniferous forest in southwes...